


Earthly Commands

by adiva_calandia



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Shakespeare, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 15:52:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiva_calandia/pseuds/adiva_calandia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a man in exile, and he claimed an island for his own and thought on revenge.</p><p>It’s an old story.</p><p>And everyone needs a servant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earthly Commands

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: references to human trafficking, underage sex, coerced sex, abusive relationships, and violence.
> 
> A tip of the hat to raven_aorla's "in all his quality" series (http://archiveofourown.org/series/29985), for planting the Skyfall/Tempest seed in my head in the first place. 
> 
> This story may as well be subtitled "Adiva's feels about Ariel and Sévérine and servitude and ghkjfkldsjadf Shakespeare?" so, uh, fair warning for possible incoherence!

There was an island, and on the island lived a man who had been betrayed.  
  
There was a man and he was powerful, and he loved knowledge above all things. Knowledge, and power, and they do say those are the same thing. He studied, and he sought, and he was _very_ good at his job. And then he was betrayed by the person he loved.  
  
There was a man in exile, and he claimed an island for his own and thought on revenge.  
  
It’s an old story.

  


  
  
Everyone needs a servant.  
  
In Macau nobody gives a shit about how delicate you are, and nobody remains truly delicate for long. The delicate die, or retreat.  
  
Min _looks_ like she might break if she fell over, but it isn’t so. Min does what she is told and lets the harsh words blow through her like wind through the trees, bears the slaps and punches the way a stone bears a lightning strike. Is she afraid? Of course. Is she weak? She can’t afford to be. Is she angry? Oh, yes.  
  
Does it help?  
  
The men who own her don’t matter, she tells herself, except when they fuck her. The men who buy her for a night at a time, with their cocks in her mouth or their hands between her skinny legs, they’ll go away in the morning, and if she does as she’s told then they usually won’t hurt her. She knows how to do what she’s told.  
  
One day when Min is fifteen, she is sent to her room and finds a foreigner there, his back to the door. That’s not so unusual. He is very tall, especially compared to her, and broad in the shoulders. His hair is blond, and Min’s first thought is that he must be an Englishman. She speaks English passably well; she learned it in dribs and drabs from her owners and foreign customers.  
  
The man is examining the headboard of the bed. He cocks his head when she shuts the doors behind her, but doesn’t turn.  
  
“Good evening.”  
  
She doesn’t recognize his accent. Perhaps he’s not English after all. She licks her dry lips and murmurs “Hello” in return.  
  
When he turns to face her, he has a faint smile on his face, like a man who knows how the joke is going to end. She looks up into his face, her eyes narrowed and calculating, and that seems to please him.  
  
“You speak English,” he notes.  
  
“Yes. A little.” She moves forward, towards the bed, her hands going to the tie of her robe.  
  
The man holds up a hand to halt her, pursing his lips with a _tsk_ noise. “Wait, wait.”

Min blinks and stops obediently, holding her robe closed. “What?”

The man steps forward slowly – he moves with great grace – and circles around her. His regard makes Min a little nervous, but . . . excited, too. Intrigued. Perhaps because he seems to be seeing something more than a common girl. When he moves behind her, Min turns her head just enough to see him from the corner of her eye. And does that make him smile?

“How old are you?” he asks.

She has to think for the word. It isn’t a question she’s asked much. “Fifteen.”

“You look older.” He circles to in front of her and reaches down to take her chin in his hand. Min scowls and pulls away, and he laughs, startled and disbelieving and delighted. “Oh, do you not like that?”

“What would you like?” she asks, still frowning. He laughs again and reaches out to take her chin. This time she doesn’t pull away – not because the touch is any more welcome, but because there’s suddenly a look in his eyes that suggests challenging him again will end badly for her.

“What are you called?”

“Min.”

“Do you enjoy working here, Min?”

That, she knows, is a dangerous question. She keeps her mouth shut. He raises his pale eyebrows, pursing his lips again, and nods twice before releasing her chin.

“Would you like to leave?”

The question makes no sense. Min understands the words well enough, but the idea of leaving her owners, of leaving her servitude, is insane. It’s the sort of thought she nurses at night as she falls asleep, a dream of something she doesn’t really know. Freedom. It isn’t _real_.

“Would you like to leave?” he repeats, softer now.

Min shrugs. Any words she could say would be foolish, or worse, dangerous.

“Of course you would,” he murmurs. He reaches down to take her hand, her fingers delicate in his, and lifts it to his lips. “You have been bound here long enough, I think.”

  


  


There was a spirit locked in captivity, a spirit too airy for such physical bondage. And when the jailer was dead, the man freed that airy spirit from the prison of wood and replaced it with a prison of words, bonds made of oaths, bars made of promises. He gave her dominion over his other servants, and told her: _thirteen years, thirteen years, thirteen years – only do what I say and I’ll make it twelve._

What prisoner would not be grateful for even the illusion of freedom?

  


  


It takes most of a year for Sévérine to understand her situation. It’s most of a year of affection and training from Silva, most of a year of no beatings nor starvation nor threats. She knows he’s making use of her, of course – she knows she’s traded hopeless slavery for another kind of servitude – but he buys her clothes and teaches her English and French and Spanish and smiles when she pleases him, and she doesn’t begrudge him the things he asks of her. He calls her Sévérine, _severe_ , because he says it suits her, and he doesn’t want her to be that girl he met in the whorehouse.

He takes her to bed after a few months, and he is very good, much better than any of the men who bought her before. Good, but abstracted, somehow. He goes about it with skill but without much affection, like it’s a responsibility he needs to fulfill. When they finish, quite a few hours later, Silva runs a finger along the line of her jaw, studying her, and then leaves without a word.

Near the end of that first year, he takes her to the island.

“You’ll like Beijing,” he says as he stands in the sun, staring at the water.

Sévérine gives him a sharp look. “Beijing? Are we going to Beijing?”

“You are. Tomorrow. There’s a man I need distracted.”

Sévérine starts to feel cold in spite of the sun. “Distracted.”

Silva frowns at her. “Yes,” he says, faintly impatient, “distracted. You haven’t forgotten how to fuck, have you?”

When she finally speaks, her voice is low and uninflected. “No. Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Silva echoes. He gives her a smile and then turns to stride away, back to his schemes and plots and computers and thugs. Leaves her alone.

  


  


She was the man’s stiletto, his whore, his lightning bolt, his harpy. She was whatever he needed her to be – correspondent to command, doing her duties gently.

He was a man of power, and when his servants displeased him, he knew how to punish them. But he rarely needed pain to keep her in line; watching his wrath rain down on others was enough. He had opened her prison – she was grateful. He did not hurt her – she was grateful.

She was grateful.

She was grateful.

(She was afraid.)

  


  


Sévérine is twenty-seven years old and has killed or helped kill twelve men and two women.

This man makes it thirteen.

She looks across the gulf between buildings at the shadowy figure in the window and thinks, _It couldn’t last forever._

_  
_

_  
_

At long last, after all his years of learning and planning, the man’s old enemies came to his shores, and there was no going back after that.

  


  


James Bond gives Sévérine chills. She has no doubt he thinks she can’t tell what he thinks of her; he probably thinks those icy blue eyes are unreadable.

He reminds her so much of Silva.

He whispers a promise of freedom in her ear, muffled by the sibilant noise of the shower, and she swallows her bitter laughter. Men like Bond don’t like to be laughed at.

It’s all coming to an end.

So she takes him to bed, and that night on the sea, she burns like she’s never let herself burn before.

  


  


The old story ended with the man releasing his servant and a joyous song, with the coming of summer, with reconciliation. _To the elements be free, and fare thou well—_

  


The new story

(“My turn.”)

ends

with

a

 

 

_Gaiement, gaiement, je vivrai désormais_

_Sous la fleur qui pend à la branche_


End file.
